


Cinnamon and Coffee

by solaliber



Category: An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24559582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solaliber/pseuds/solaliber
Summary: Helene hates the smell of cinnamon...except when it's on Avitas. Avitas hates staying up...except when it's for Helene. Two people from different walks of life find themselves intrinsically woven into each other.
Relationships: Helene Aquilla/Avitas Harper
Kudos: 32





	Cinnamon and Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr saw it first.

Helene hated the smell of cinnamon— she couldn’t stand to be in the vicinity of anything that emitted the smell. But, at the times when Avitas’s smell of cedar and cinnamon wash over her, like when she presses kisses to the triangle of skin at his throat, or when he presses so close to her that she can’t differentiate her body from his, or when he leans over her in a thinly veiled disguise of “fixing a spelling mistake she made in her reports” when in fact he’s just looking for an excuse to be near her, in those moments, Helene decides that maybe she doesn’t hate the smell so much after all.

For the longest time, Helene avoided looking at her reflection. She knew she’d see the twin scars marring her face, serving as a permanent reminder of the terrible battle at Antium, of all the precious lives lost, of the terrible repercussions of underestimating an enemy. Most of all, she hated that the scars reminded her of her failure as a Mask. But when Avitas traces them with gentle fingers when they kiss, when his mouth moves along the length of her jaw while he whispers his affection for her, when he treats her no differently from when she did wear a mask, Helene realizes that with or without a mask, she is, and always will be, Helene Aquilla. The scars don’t appear ugly to her anymore. They represent her tenderness towards her people, her willingness to sacrifice herself, her hope in a better future. So the next time Helene sees a glimpse of her reflection, she doesn’t flinch away like she normally would have. She pauses in front of the mirror, quietly observing as her eyes run down the length of her scars. Before she turns away, she allows herself the tiniest of smiles.

Helene often works late into the night, trying in vain to tackle the pile of paperwork that was enlarging at an alarming rate. She turns down Avitas’s many offers to help, insisting that he go rest, but he never leaves her side. He pulls down a book from the bookshelf in their shared room and settles down next to her. Sometimes he reads with peppermint tea, other times with a cup of warm coffee. When Helene closes her eyes, “Just for a moment,” she declares, and inadvertently falls asleep, Avitas gathers her in his arms and takes her to their bed, removing her shoes and tucking her in. He himself soon lays down behind her, Helene’s hair tickling the side of his face as he closes his eyes. And together, they dream.

Marriage was never something Avitas considered, nor the prospect of children. Having witnessed the turmoil that his father’s affair had caused on his mother, he decided that perhaps marriage wasn’t for him. Besides, he was doing just fine by himself, wasn’t he? So he never envied his classmates when he would get the occasional wedding invitation in the mail. But as the years go on, Avitas and Helene attend the wedding of a fellow Mask. As he observes the happy couple declaring their vows to each other, as he sees his former classmates looking at their own children with quiet admiration in their eyes, his own mind wanders; he finds himself pondering what his and Helene’s children would look like. Would they have his dark hair, or her blue eyes, or his tanned skin? Would they detest cinnamon like their mother, or demand that henceforth, everything they eat be cinnamon flavored? He finds himself wondering with increasing regularity what it would be like to address Helene as his wife, to wake up next to her in a home of their own, what it would be like to celebrate anniversaries. So it didn’t surprise him when he walked into the jewelers shop he’d so often passed by, with a certain ring in mind.

Avitas knelt down in front of Helene’s parents’ tombstones, the slab of marble marking their names and their respective dates of birth and death. He was quiet for a long time, the warm wind caressing his hair. “I love your daughter,” he said after a while, bowing his head. “More than I have ever loved anything. And I intend on marrying her. I beseech you for your blessing over our marriage.” He doesn’t know, of course, whether her late parents approve or not, but he sincerely hopes they do. He hopes that wherever they are in the afterlife, if there even is an afterlife, that they’d see that his heart unreservedly belonged to their daughter. As he gets up and brushes away the dirt from his pants, he thanks her parents. For bringing a woman like Helene into the world. For teaching her the importance of family and loyalty. For instilling in her lessons that shaped her. When he walks away, he feels a strange warmth brush across his shoulders.

When he proposes, it is just the two of them. The warm night sky was clear of clouds, the crescent moon faintly glowing amongst the stars. Avitas was tracing the freckles on her arms; he’d traced them so often by now that despite the lack of light, he knew exactly where they were on her arms. He continued to trail his fingers up her arm, brushing over the goosebumps that sprouted along his path. She reaches up to brush away a leaf that had fallen on his dark hair, but she lets her hand linger on his face. When he gets down on one knee and proclaims his adoration and love for her, when he fervently promises his loyalty to her, when he implores her to consider a life with him, the question is barely out of his mouth before Helene crushes her mouth to his. He finds her answer in the fingers she digs into his scarred back, in the tongue she brushes against his, and in the sigh of content she lets out before resting her head against his chest. As an owl nearby lets out a hoot, Helene, too, feels that strange warmth brush across her shoulders. She smiles; she knows exactly who that was.


End file.
